Diving in the Land of Moses

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Eastward I went toward the edge of Africa and beyond. My route passed the town of Rosetta, famous for the stone found there that helped researchers decipher the hieroglyphics, and continued through the Nile delta. The darkness outside my window eased my desire to watch the landscape go by, so I spent most of the journey fading in and out of sleep. I woke up when we hit bumps in the road, or when we stopped for a restroom break, or when large vehicles passed us in the other direction. The landscape was always the same, featureless darkness, so I always drifted back to sleep. At some point in the night I woke up as the bus entered a tunnel – It was the highlight of the night’s journey. Down we went into the earth leaving Africa in our dust. Above us the famous Suez Canal joined the Mediterranean with the Red Sea. It was one of the most important manmade waterways in the world, since it allowed ships to take a shortcut and bypass the often-dangerous voyage around Africa via the Cape of Good Hope. The road started heading up and then we immerged into the early-morning twilight on the other side of the canal. At some point in the tunnel we said farewell to the wild continent of Africa and greeted the exotic realm of Asia. As the bus rambled on into the lightening sky I marveled at the rugged landscape I was passing through. It was a large peninsula filled with jagged mountains and stunning desert scenery and it was one of the most important and most contested pieces of land in the world – I had crossed over into the Sinai Peninsula.

My journey into the Sinai took me, first, down to the southern end of the peninsula and the diving resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. There I left my comfortable bus and boarded another, decidedly less comfortable bus headed north along the east coast. As the bus rambled on through the desert I marveled at the rugged landscape and wondered how anybody could survive in such a place – It was no wonder why most of the settlements on the peninsula were along the coast. About mid morning I stepped off of the bus at a deserted bus station just outside of Dahab, a tiny town hugging the shore of one of the most spectacular sections of Sinai coastline. Oddly enough, I was the only person still standing on the curb when the bus continued on its journey. There were no hawkers, no food vendors and no persistent taxi drivers. There was nobody at all trying to part me from my money. I briefly wondered if I was still in Egypt, having accepted that the hustle and bustle around the pharaonic towns was the norm.

I stood there alone in the searing sun, my water long gone and my backpack weighing me down, and I wondered where the town was. I looked north along the coast and then south. The only things I saw were some unfinished buildings and one mega resort. I decided that I wanted to be as far from the resort as I could be, so I started walking north up the coast. After about twenty minutes the town started taking shape around me. The unfinished buildings started taking on a more habitable form and the traffic got thicker. Souvenir shops and seaside restaurants catering to budget travelers and Scuba divers became frequent. Everywhere I looked the famous red and white Scuba flags were prominently displayed, hinting at the town’s main industry. Despite all of the shops and the restaurants and the tour operators, Dahab still had the small-town, coastal feel that I had been longing to find in Egypt – It was safe to say that I liked Dahab immediately!

I found a nice room in a ‘dive camp’ called the Seven Heaven Hotel, I stashed my bags and then I went out to find some much-needed food. I spent the next several hours sitting at a colorful table beside the sea enjoying a big meal and taking in the lovely scene. The table sat in the shade of a big awning, with waves lapping at its legs, occasionally splashing up onto my plate in an explosion of salt spray. Across the Gulf of Aqaba, the desert mountains of Saudi Arabia rose up out of the blue water, beckoning me to come explore the forbidden land. The constant sound of cars that had accompanied my every move in Egypt was gone. With the cars and the noise, the overbearing hawkers and cab drivers and even the gaudy pharaonic décor had vanished without a trace. All I could hear was the wind and the waves and the muffled sounds of food being prepared in the nearby kitchen – It was wonderful!

My first two days in Dahab went by in a blur. I spent most of my time watching the colorful fish swim past my mask out at Lighthouse reef, a beautiful coral reef right off of the pedestrian-only, seaside promenade that served as the town’s main road. The reef was made up of a sheer wall of coral that started just below the surface in the shallows near shore and followed the steep, sloping contour of the sandy seafloor until it disappeared into the dark realm of the scuba divers. Huge schools of tiny, silver fish danced in freeform balls that seemed to have lives of their own. Barracuda patrolled the deeper waters around the reef, occasionally coming up to say hello with their big, toothy grin. Colorful tropical fish of every imaginable form and hue glided along the bright coral formations… It was an amazing place to snorkel. One of my favorite residents of the reef was a fish that I have loved since I was a kid, but had never seen in the wild. Its brown and yellow striped body, feathery fins and poisonous dorsal spikes dominated the fish tanks of all of the best Chinese restaurants of my youth - For the first time in my diving/snorkeling career, I was finally staring into the eyes of a wild lionfish! It wasn’t just one lionfish either; they were one of the most common fish on the reef!

When I wasn’t beneath the waves at Lighthouse reef I was sitting at one of the seaside restaurants or cafes enjoying great food and fruity drinks to the rhythm of the lapping waves. I also talked with other divers and travelers about the area’s many attractions. As my second afternoon in Dahab wound down I went back to my room, set my alarm and did my best to get some sleep – I had a big day ahead of me!

The alarm jolted me awake at 10:00pm and I quickly went about getting ready for the day’s journey. A few moments later one of the hotel employees knocked on my door to ensure I was ready. When I stepped out he smiled and said, “Good evening”, and then handed me a bagged breakfast. He took me to the back gate of the hotel grounds and told me to wait there for the van. Another man joined me there and then, about twenty minutes later, an overloaded minivan skid to a stop in front of us. We shoved ourselves into the two remaining spaces in the van as the driver slid the door shut behind us. He jumped into his seat, put the van in gear and slammed the accelerator to the floor. We rocketed down the narrow alley between the different hotels and exploded out onto the main road in a cloud of dust. We all held on for dear life as the driver maneuvered our little van out of the town and then headed inland toward the rugged heart of the Sinai. It helped that we were packed in so tightly that we couldn’t move, since the lack of seatbelts in the van would have sent us flying, otherwise. The ride continued like a jerky, out-of-control rollercoaster for what seemed like hours. The van’s tires protested around every bend in the road, sometimes serenading us with the same chattering squeaks that always precede a fiery crash in the movies, yet somehow the driver always managed to stay in control. We got several reprieves from the action when we stopped at the military checkpoints that dotted our rout. The stern faced guards seemed to understand our plight, so they took their time questioning the driver and looking in at us. Of course, our stomachs would just be getting settled again when the guard waved his hand and the accelerator was crushed against the floorboard again. It was still very dark when we skidded into a tour bus-clogged parking area and came to a stop. A quick look at my watch revealed that we had endured the driver’s maniacal rally-racing aspirations for only an hour and a half – It was one o’clock in the morning!

We eagerly poured out of the van, grabbed our backpacks and assembled on the curb. The driver disappeared for a moment and then returned with a Bedouin man that he introduced as our guide. Then he told us when and where to meet him for the return journey to Dahab and he jumped back into the van and sped off. Our guide was very friendly and spoke English well. He excitedly explained the history of the area, though we all knew it well, and then we started walking. After a few minutes of weaving through tired mobs of package tourists and grumpy camels and a few modern buildings we came to the amazing, stone ramparts of an ancient fortress. Our guide pointed to the sturdy walls and said, “Saint Katherine’s Monastery”, pausing to motion us ahead, “We will see the monastery when we come back down, but we must hurry now - Come.” After a few more minutes of walking we left the crowds and the floodlit walls of the monastery behind us. We emerged into a stunning landscape of rugged boulders and jagged peaks, bound by a brilliant, starry sky. As far as I could see the land was bathed in soft blue moonlight giving the entire landscape an otherworldly feel, kind of like the area surrounding the Southern Oracle in the movie The Never Ending Story. It was cold, but the power of the place and our ceaseless climb kept us all warm.

We were following in the steps of Moses climbing the famous Mount Sinai, locally known as Gebel Musa. Our goal was to reach the summit, where Moses received the Ten Commandments from God, and watch the sunrise over the Holy Land. It was a pilgrimage of sorts; one that had been undertaken by Christians, Muslims and Jews for thousands of years, and it was exciting to be there. The cool, crisp desert air, the huge canopy of stars and the rugged landscape were overwhelming. The crunch of my every step on the gravely path merged with the gentle desert breeze and the occasional protest from a passing camel to form a peaceful soundtrack that couldn’t have changed much over the nearly two millennia that the monastery watched over the path.

I let my mind drift back over the ages and I tried to picture what it would have been like to make a pilgrimage to the mountain in times past. The new asphalt road removed the difficulty and dangers of crossing the rugged, barren landscape of the Sinai. In doing so it also changed the monastery from a remote bastion of religion to a busy tourist attraction. Part of me wanted to go back to a time when I would have had to cross the entire peninsula in a camel caravan. I longed for the weeks of sun-scorched days and freezing nights, of boundless expanses of stars and endless gravel paths, of nights spent huddled around the small cooking fire trying to stay warm and days spent searching for shelter from the sun, of the constant smells of smoke and camel dung and of that amazing moment when the giant stone ramparts of the fortress finally appeared around that next bend and you knew that you had finally arrived. I missed the journey that my imagination had built, but I treasured the one that had brought me to that small patch of desert on that cold night.

During the climb we paused at every teahouse that we came to for a quick break. One of those stops ended up being longer than the rest, because our guide had to negotiate a ride up and back down the mountain for someone in our group who was struggling with the climb and unable to continue. The camel driver drove a hard bargain, but an agreement was made and we bid our new friend farewell as she was whisked away on the back of a camel. After about two hours of walking we reached Elijah’s Basin, a grouping of teahouses a few hundred meters below the summit, near the place where Elijah had heard the voice of God. There our guide told us that we were on our own for the remainder of the climb. He made sure we all had sleeping bags or blankets and then he pointed to the staircase that would lead us to the summit. I turned to the uneven stone stairs and I started climbing. It was an exciting climb. At first I was counting the steps, but I lost count somewhere around 350 when I paused to stare up at the vast, star-filled sky. With protesting legs and sore knees I finally reached the last of the 750 stairs and walked up a gentle slope to the summit.

All around me the mountaintop was crowded with groups of pilgrims and tourists. There were also some beautiful, but simple stone buildings built around the craggy top. I walked around a beautiful old church and found a ledge with an unobstructed view to the east. I pulled my sleeping bag out of my bag and then I wrapped up and sat down on the cold stone. I was freezing. In my excitement to get to the top, I had practically run up the 750 steps from Elijah’s Bench, which made me sweat a bit, even in the cold night air. The sweat and the resulting damp clothes turned out to be a bad thing up in the freezing, early morning air at 2285 meters above the sea. It didn’t help that my sleeping bag was more suited for a warm, sub-Saharan Africa climate. I was damp and shivering and I had at least an hour to wait for the sunrise. I passed my time listening to the different groups around me singing hymns and taking photos of the beautiful nighttime scenes on top. Slowly, imperceptibly at first, the sky started to lighten and the stars disappeared in the bluish haze of the early morning sky. The sun forced its way up above the distant horizon of jagged peaks and shed its warmth across the land. There were more hymns and some cheering and then, just a few minutes after the sun made its appearance, the crowds started to disperse. I joined in the exodus, partly because I was on my guide’s schedule and partly because the freezing temperatures that had kept me shivering all night were quickly disappearing and I knew the desert heat would be right on its heels.

My group gathered at Elijah’s Bench and we spent several minutes reliving our experiences on the mountain. I wanted to descend the mountain via the more exciting Steps of Repentance instead of retracing our route back down the camel path, but something about 3000 uneven, stone steps didn’t agree with anyone else in the group. I reluctantly fell in line with them and we started back down the mountain together. The landscape that had been shrouded in darkness during the ascent was now glowing in a thousand shades of brown. Vast boulder fields and steep cliffs filled the landscape, bound by jagged peaks and the deep blue sky above. The path cut a zigzag trail down the steep slope, slowly making its way toward the red stone walls of the fortified monastery that rose up far below at the other end of the valley. Slowly the mountains got taller and the valley floor closer and then the trail leveled out. After a bit more walking the giant ramparts of the monastery were in front of me and my amazing walk was done.

I said farewell to my Bedouin guide at the giant wooden gate of the monastery and then I took a seat on a large rock and waited for the monastery to open its doors to us. The giant gates creaked open about half an hour later than expected and I joined the rush of people that flowed into the sacred, inner sanctuary. St. Katherine’s Monastery and its beautiful walls had been standing in that valley since 330 AD, when the Romans built a small chapel beside a bush that was believed to be the ‘burning bush’ that God spoke to Moses through. In the 6th century the fortress was built around that chapel and the bush and an ornate basilica and the monastery were constructed inside to accommodate the large number of pilgrims that were making the arduous journey into the desert. The basilica, known as the Church of the Transfiguration, was still standing, one of early Christianity’s only remaining churches. I put my camera into my bag and joined the long lines of pilgrims heading into the basilica. It was dark inside, but the gilded iconostasis reflected the light from amazing chandeliers and countless candles, fueling a beautiful and mysterious atmosphere inside. I marveled at the beautiful marble columns that flanked the nave and the ancient artwork, much of it dating from Byzantine times, but it was the 6th century mosaic hidden in the shadows of the apse, above the remains of St. Katherine, that everyone was straining to see, since it was considered to be one of the most important works of art at the monastery. I paused near the altar to light a few candles for my family and friends and then I continued moving out of the basilica and back into the crowded alleys inside the monastery. I turned and followed the alley past the Well of Moses and then turned to the right. There I found a small stone wall with a giant green bush growing up out of the top – The burning bush! The bush, which was believed to be a direct descendant of the one that spoke to Moses, had been transplanted from a spot within the chapel of the burning bush to that location in the 10th century and it has been thriving there ever since. Its low branches were browned from the hands of thousands of pilgrims a day that touched the bush and prayed for their loved ones. Several prayer notes were piled along the top of the wall that enclosed the bush and there were several teary-eyed people standing beneath it. I did as all of the others and gently touched the bush and then I stood back and watched for a while as more and more pilgrims searched out the bush. Eventually my rendezvous time with the van arrived. My time in the monastery was over, so I reluctantly made my way back to the giant gates, turned for one last look, and then headed back out into the desert.

St. Katherine’s Monastery and the Mt. Sinai area was one of the most powerful places I have ever been. I wished that I had saved enough time to spend a few nights there, but I had just over two weeks left before I was going to board my homeward-bound plane in Amman and I had a lot I wanted to see still. I vowed to return someday, and then I shoved myself into one of the tiny seats in the van and promptly fell asleep. The rest of the journey came to me in brief, terrifying glimpses, generally accompanied by loud squealing from the tires, or some overly jerky movements from the van that forced me awake for a moment. Before I knew it the driver of the van was shaking me awake, saying, “We are here, it is time to wake up and go back to your hotel.” I thanked him, gathered my things and walked the short distance to my room. I sat down on the bed and looked at my watch. It was just before noon and I was hungry, so I put off sleep for a moment and I went out for a huge lunch at my favorite seaside restaurant. An hour later I was sitting on my bed again. I laid down for a quick nap…

I woke up at 1:00 am confused and hungry. My nap had turned into nine hours of sleep and I had missed dinner. I ate a few cookies and then went back to sleep. I awoke again at 8:00, having been in bed for sixteen hours. It was Halloween and I felt great, which is rarely the case after that much sleep. I sat down to eat breakfast and did some writing in my journal. After breakfast I went snorkeling at Lighthouse reef. The waves were strong and they buffeted me back and forth. At one point I was out away from the reef when I came across an amazing sight. It was a lionfish, but it was a miniature one. It had gotten pulled off of the reef by the surge and it was trying with all its might to propel itself back again. I almost swam into it and its poisonous spines, but instead I floated with it and watched in awe – I suppose I always knew that lionfish started with a baby phase, like all other animals, but I never suspected how cute they would be! I followed him for a while, but eventually the surge churned up the water so much that the visibility deteriorated and I decided to head back in for a while. I spent the rest of the day arranging some SCUBA dives for the following day and then transportation to Jordan for two days after that. I did another snorkeling excursion to Lighthouse reef after lunch, though I did it without my snorkel, which I had lost somewhere on the way to the reef. Despite my lost snorkel, I had a great dive. The conditions had greatly improved since morning and I saw lots of amazing fish, including another large barracuda.

The next day started early. I gathered my rented SCUBA gear and piled it into a truck at the back gate. We headed south along the coast for a while. Before long the pavement came to an end and we continued on a dusty, dirt track that followed a narrow band of land between the desert mountains and the beach. We reached our first stop at a small dive camp built right on the shore. Our first dive was at Morey Garden. The reef started near a flat sandy patch and gently sloped its way deeper. Around 22 meters the reef dropped off sharply and disappeared into the deep blue of the gulf. We swam along the reef near the edge, which allowed us to take in the amazing coral and all of the colorful life that lived there, as well as the big, deep-water fish that were swimming along the drop-off. I immediately spotted a giant napoleon fish that was swimming in the blue just off of the drop-off. We watched it for a while and then moved on – My divemaster later told me that he had only seen one other napoleon fish in his months working there, so we were lucky. Deep blues, bright oranges and fiery reds met our eyes in every direction. We found clown fish, butterfly fish, large potato cods and brightly colored peacock bass in great numbers, as well as countless beautiful fish and coral that I couldn’t identify. The reef had the most spectacular coral I had seen anywhere, so I was a little sad when we reached the turn-around air pressure we had decided on. We swam up over a small ridge in the coral and emerged into a large sandy patch that gently sloped back up to the beach. We passed a long-tom that was snapping its jaws at a small cleaner fish and then we came across the king of the reef. It was a giant barracuda that was swimming slowly at the head of a huge school of smaller fish. I had seen many barracuda over the years, but this one was the largest, by far, at around six feet long. We swam with the king for a while. At one point I was directly below him looking up. The sunlight flashed a black-streaked, silvery light off of his streamlined body. It was an amazing sight to see, made better by an unexpected, real-life scene from the movie Jaws - Looking past the giant barracuda to the surface, about ten feet above it, the kicking legs and splashing of two young children playing in the waves, completely oblivious to the giant toothy fish calmly swimming past beneath their feet! Of course, as a diver I knew they weren’t in any danger. We left the king and swam back to shore, bringing our amazing dive in the Red Sea to an end.

We put our gear away and headed over to the camp and sat down on a lovely carpet in the shade and ate lunch. We spent the next hour and a half reliving the dive and talking about the different options we had for our second dive of the day. There were several spots that sounded great, but all of them would have been similar to Morey Garden. There was one spot that the divemaster hadn’t been to yet, but had heard it was one of the best dives in the area. It didn’t take much work to convince us, because it did sound wonderful. It was going to be another deep dive, so we took our time with lunch, extending our surface interval. When we finished eating we climbed back into the truck and started driving further down the coast. The jagged coastal mountains merged with the blue water of the gulf. Our dusty track followed a narrow shelf of desert and beach at the base of the mountains. Before long we came to another dive camp that looked deserted. A sign welcomed us to “Caves”. We stopped and started getting our gear ready. A man materialized out of one of the shelters and the divemaster went and chatted with him for a while, apparently finding out where the entry point for the dive was. With that settled we donned our gear and walked out to the sea.

The dive site was known as Caves, due to two underwater cave-like features that had been gouged out of the rock by the relentless action of the waves. It was a shore dive, but entering the water was more like a boat dive – We fell backwards off of a small shelf over one of the caves into the water! Once we had all taken the plunge off of the shelf we gathered and descended into the deep blue water. We had entered the water at the mouth of the smaller of the two caves. A sand mound was directly below the entry that formed into a massive sandy slope that descended steeply into the deep blue abyss. We swam into the cave and then followed a steep coral wall around towards the south. When we got to our maximum depth we turned and swam to the north, across the steep sandy slope, being careful to maintain our depth. When we reached the other side we swam up and over the reef again. There we explored a small ledge in a dramatic coral wall that went straight up to the surface, twenty meters above us. We found our second napoleon fish of the day there and it was considerably larger than the one we had seen earlier. We swam out to the edge of the shelf and then over it and, with an overwhelming feeling like we were flying, we shot out over the blue abyss. I looked down the vertical wall of coral to the distant sandy bottom – That view, coupled with the twenty-meter high wall rising up to the surface above us was truly amazing! We explored the reef for a little while longer and then we turned around and headed back the way we had come. When we swam over the edge of the reef again and looked down the sandy slope we got another jolt of ‘flying’ adrenaline – The coral wall rising up before us, which I somehow missed going the other direction, made me feel really small! We swam into the second cave, which was a bit deeper than the first. There we found a giant porcupine fish hiding in the dark recesses with a bunch of giant lionfish. We still had a bit of time to kill, so we went to explore the wall to the south, which was spectacular. We spent our safety stop swimming back to the exit along the southern wall. Along the way I found a narrow coral canyon that looked both forbidding and inviting at the same time. As I swam by the narrow canyon, shafts of sunlight shot in from the surface and shed a warm, reddish light on the coral inside – It was a beautiful sight to end my diving experience in the Red Sea with! Getting out of the water proved to be more difficult than getting in. We basically had to pretend we were penguins and swim up and burst out of the water on to the ledge, using the waves as propulsion – I bloodied my knee and hand on my exit, but I never stopped laughing! What a great dive it was. We ended up going out to dinner as a group and we relived the great day of diving over some excellent food and camaraderie.

With the end of my diving excursion came the end of everything that I was hoping to do in Dahab. I spent the next day snorkeling at Lighthouse, which was wonderful as usual, and getting the details for my journey to Jordan squared away. By dinnertime, I had seen my last barracuda and lionfish on the reef, watched the free-flowing form of a giant school of fish as they dodged the predators and said farewell to most of my friends there. As I ate I thought back over my time in Egypt. I experienced the hectic streets of Cairo during Ramadan, explored the Nile and its amazing monuments at a leisurely, old-world pace, lived like a movie star in Alexandria and explored the pilgrim route in the land of Moses. Egypt was all I had hoped it would be and more, but it was time to move on. As I finished my last meal in Egypt I glanced up and saw a humorous sight that kind of wrapped up my perceptions of Egypt in a nutshell - A stuffed Sinai fox sitting upright, wearing clothes and smoking a water pipe, with wide eyes and funny smile on his timeless face was staring at me from the shelf above my table. That is my last impression of the land of the Pharaohs!

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Photos

Saint Katherine's Monastery
This was the view of the monastery from the camel path up Mt. Sinai.

Restaurant by the Sea
This was my favorite place to sit and eat in Dahab. The end of the table was at the edge of the sea.

Dahab
Beautiful Dahab.

On Top of Mt. Sinai
One of the many photos I took as I shivered in my inadequate sleeping bag on top of Mt. Sinai.

The Sinai Peninsula
This is a view of the rugged terrain from on top of Mt. Sinai.

Sunrise Over the Holy Land
This was the goal of my night climb up Mt. Sinai. The mountaintop was filled with people cheering and singing hymns as the sun rose.

Pilgrims and Tourists
Everyone on top of Mt. Sinai was looking east to the rising sun.

The Camel Path
This is the path we took up Mt. Sinai. This is what it looked like on the way down.

A Grumpy Camel
If you can't make the walk then these guys are all too willing to help you out.

Rugged Mountains
The view from the camel path.

St. Katherine's Monastery
The ancient stone fortress surrounding the monastery was an imposing site from anywhere in the valley.

A Timeless Scene
I imagine that I would have been greeted by a similar scene a thousand years ago.

The Burning Bush!
...at least a relative of it.

The Ancient Basilica
This is one of the oldest Christian Churches in existence. The Church of the Transfiguration.

A Parting View of St. Katherine's Monastery
This was the view of the monastery as I headed back to the van for another two hours of torture.